My mom wasn’t very tolerant of me and my sisters treating each other poorly. We never had the chance to get into big fights because if my mom heard one whisper of pinching, biting, pulling hair, name calling, or dirty looks going on, she’d whip us into shape pretty quickly.

One of my least favorite consequences for this type of behavior was to write sentences. Yes, I love to write, but I love to write what I WANT to write. Writing sentences was awful. She’d sit us down at the table with a pencil and notebook and order us to write, “I love my sister, and I will treat her with respect,” 500 times. Without taking a break. The monotony was awful, but the actual content of the sentence was worse. Who wants to write about love and respect 500 times after getting into an epic battle over skates or…